California Fish and Game Changes Name

The California Fish and Game Department is no more. The agency hasn’t been dismantled, but its name has been changed, from “Fish and Game” to “Fish and Wildlife.” Is this anti-hunting political correctness run amuck, or merely an accurate reflection of its expanded mission?

From this story in the LA Times: To Jared Huffman, the name “fish and game” was an outdated artifact of a bygone era when state officials mostly set hunting seasons and bag limits. It no longer reflected the department’s mission “to mange California’s diverse fish, wildlife and plant resources, and the habitats upon which they depend, for their ecological values and for their use and enjoyment by the public.” “Having the name ‘game’ was a relic,” said Huffman, a former Democratic state lawmaker from San Rafael who will be sworn in as a new member of Congress on Thursday. “Even states like Texas and Montana, where hunting and fishing are sacred, they evolved to ‘fish and wildlife’ long ago.” So the California Department of Fish and Game is no more. It’s now the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, under a new law written by Huffman that mandated the switchover with the New Year.